Some Of The Best Anime Shows From 2016

It’s that time of the year when I look back at the year and talk about the anime shows which I found amazing. This year like every other was no exception to the garbage the anime industry produces. Still, it had some rare fine gems. I know terming a anime show as “Best Anime Of 2016” would be super biased as everyone has his/her unique tastes. I mean just look at these figures by Crunchyroll, it reveals which anime were 2016’s most viewed in each country. I know it is only limited to Crunchyroll’s catalog of shows but still they have the majority of the anime licenses.

Talking about these metrics, a majority of Crunchyroll’s audience fell hardest for Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World but that wasn’t the case in every country. Clearly, people have different perspectives so I’ll list a bunch of shows which I feel are good enough. FYI, like always I will only talk about new shows which debuted this year and not something like Terraformars Revenge which was a sequel of 2015’s Terraformers. So, without anymore BS here are some of the best anime shows from 2016.

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu

Yotarou is a former yakuza member fresh out of prison but instead of returning back to Yakuza, he aspires to become a famous rakugo performer. Rakugo is a traditional Japanese form of comedic storytelling. After falling in love with the performance of rakugo master Yakumo, he begs in front of Yakumo to take him in as an apprentice. To his surprise, master Yakumo agrees without much hesitation, yet things progress not quite as Yotarou expected.

Re:ZERO -Starting Life In Another World

While leaving the convenience store Subaru never expected to be suddenly wrenched from his everyday life and dropped into a fantasy world. Soon in that mystical world, he befriends a silver-haired girl, only to be killed along with that girl. Hold it, didn’t our protagonist just die, well there is a catch, suddenly after his death, Subaru reawakens to a familiar scene—confronted by the same group of thugs, meeting Stella all over again—the enigma deepens as history inexplicably repeats itself. Turns out he has acquired the ability “Return by Death”, enabling him to reverse time by dying.

Mob Psycho 100

Mob Psycho 100 is the story about a young middle schooler, Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed “Mob” living in Seasoning City. Ever since he was young, he has had astounding psychic powers. He is nicknamed Mob as he is like a perfect background character rather than a protagonist. He even hides his powers from the world because of the constant negative attention he receives. Suddenly this lifeless being has a purpose in life, he wants is to become friends with a girl in his class, Tsubomi. With his psychic “mentor” (who has no psychic powers), he continues his daily life, attempting to realize his purpose in life.

91 Days

During Prohibition, the law held no power and the mafia ruled the town. Thanks to the mafia rule, the town was thriving on black market sales of illicitly brewed liquor. Angelo Lagusa lives a happy life with his little brother and parents in this town. This all changes when his family is murdered in a dispute with the Vanetti Family, particularly its don, Vincent Vanetti. Seven years later he receives a mysterious letter from a friend of his father, claiming to be offering revenge for his family’s death. So, Angelo returns to his hometown to seek revenge against those who wronged him.

Ajin

Mysterious immortal humans known as Ajin first appeared 17 years ago in Africa. Upon their discovery, they were labeled as a threat to mankind, as they might use their powers for evil and were incapable of being destroyed. Since then, whenever an Ajin is found within society, they are to be arrested and taken into custody immediately.

The story is about a student named Kei Nagai, who discovers he is an immortal Ajin when he is hit by a truck. He becomes a wanted person because the Ajin are considered dangerous inhuman beings and the only person who is there to support him is his childhood friend, Kaito. While the government claims to help Ajin live in a safe environment, they are actually using them as subjects for cruel and inhumane experimentation. However, as he finds himself alone on the run from the entire world, Kei soon realizes that more of his species may be a lot closer than he thinks.

ReLIFE

ReLife Cast

So have you ever thought, “What if I could redo my life?” Of course, you have, haven’t you? I mean isn’t that something which we think when life hits us hard. Well, the series kinda scribbles around that idea.

So our Protagonist, Arata Kaizaki is sort of a NEET (Not in Employment or Training), he wasn’t supposed to be one. Due to some situations at work, he quits his very first job in just three month. After which he is unable to fetch a good job and as a result of which he only works part-time. This surely isn’t something he hoped for in his life. And if that wasn’t enough, his parents threaten him that they would completely cut his allowances.

Drunk in his sorrow and pain, Arata crosses path with Ryo Yoake, who offers him a unique job. A job where Arata will be a test subject for a strange drug which turns anyone consuming it, younger. Although that’s just the appearance. And now this 27-year-old begins his life as a 17-year-old high school student.

Konosuba

The series begins with an epic scene where the protagonist, Kazuma saves a girl from hitting a truck while dying in the process. Although that might sound really heroic like a scene from Yu Yu Hakusho but it wasn’t. Turns out he wasn’t hit by a truck. There was no truck there in the first place, it was a slow ass tractor and even it stopped before it could hit Kazuma. So how he died you ask? Apparently from Shock.

The doctors and ever Kazuma parents can’t stop laughing at how he died. Following his embarrassing demise, he meets a goddess named Aqua who offers him two choices either to live his entire eternity in heaven or to get sent to an another world to defeat the Demon King and then get reincarnated. Kazuma been a shut-in chooses to start a new life in a real-life RPG.

Yuri!!! on Ice

After suffering a crushing defeat during the Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final and other failed showings at other skating competitions, Yuri Katsuki develops mixed feelings about ice skating and puts his career on hiatus, going to college in Detroit and later returning to his hometown of Hasetsu in Kyushu. He visits his childhood friend Yuko at an ice rink known as Ice Castle Hasetsu and perfectly mimics an advanced skating routine performed by famous Russian figure skater Victor Nikiforov, who is Yuri’s idol. When secretly recorded footage of Yuri’s performance is uploaded to the internet, it catches the attention of Victor, who travels to Kyushu and offers to coach Yuri and restart his figure skating career. Together with Victor, Yuri aims to win the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series as he battles against his rival, Yuri Plisetsky, a 15-year-old rising star skater from Russia.

My Hero Academia

The series is based in the world where having powers is considered to be normal. So normal that almost 80% of the entire population is a power user. In such a universe our protagonist, a rather powerless human, wants to become a hero. Soon he meets his icon and the number one hero around All Might and everything changes. After weeks of reckless training, he finally joins UA High, a prestigious school famous for their Superhero training. With super talented classmates both good and bad Izuyu slows walks the path of a hero.

Orange

Rather an unusual addition but honestly I really enjoyed the source material. It follows a girl who gets a letter from her future self, asking to prevent Kakeru Naruse, the new transfer student, from sinking into depression and taking his own life. I just finished the original source material and it was a quite relaxing read.

March Comes In Like A Lion

This series is written by the same person who wrote Honey and Clover, which is an another great anime. The protagonist Rei is a 17-year-old professional shōgi player, who lives by himself, not having a real family, and has scarcely any friends. Among his acquaintances is a family, which consists of a young woman, Akari Kawamoto, and her younger sisters, Hinata and Momo, who also keep several cats. As the story progresses, Rei deals with his maturing as a player and as a person, while developing his relationships with others, especially the Kawamoto sisters.

Drifters

Shimazu Toyohisa is the real-life samurai who fought in the pivotal Battle of Sekigahara. In his dying moments, Shimazu is transported to a world of magic with other famous warriors throughout history. These warriors are forced to fight each other in an endless battle.